Knoxville ranked as No. 6 fattest city in the U.S.

For the health conscious traditional measurements of BMI (Body Mass Index) may still qualify one as overweight. A BMI of 30 or above is considered "obese". Even if you are not "fat," by definition this traditional measurements, could give people a false sense of progress when fighting the battle of the bulge. In a new study researchers argue the validity of the BMI standards suggesting that BMI misses about 50% of the people who still have dangerous amounts of fat, which are typically those who have the proverbial beer belly, but are otherwise in decent shape.
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A new report ranks Knoxville as the No. 6 fattest city in the United States.(Photo: FredFroese, Getty Images/iStockphoto)

A new survey ranks Knoxville as the No. 6 fattest metro area in the United States. Southern cities top the fat-city list, which includes No. 1 Little Rock, Arkansas, No. 2 Shreveport, Louisiana, and No. 3 McAllen, Texas.

It’s bad news for all of Tennessee, with Memphis landing at No. 4 and Chattanooga at No. 12 on the fattest-city list. Even the Volunteer State’s least-fat metro area, Nashville, is America’s No. 16 fattest city.

The rankings, devised by personal-finance site WalletHub, were compiled using 18 metrics in three primary categories – obesity/overweight statistics, health consequences, and food and fitness.

The obesity/overweight category accounts for 60 percent of a city’s score and includes metrics such as the per capita rate of obese/overweight adults, obese/overweight children and projected obesity rates by 2030.

Health consequences account for 25 percent of the score and include per capita rates of high cholesterol, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and obesity-related death.

The food and fitness category accounts for 15 percent of the score and includes everything from fruit/vegetable consumption to physical activity.

According to the report, Knoxville is middle of the pack for food and fitness categories, but in bad shape under health consequences, which includes a No. 6 ranking for the rate of adults with diabetes and No. 9 for the rate of adults with high blood pressure.

The West is best

Western cities ranked the best in the fat-city survey – including Portland, Ore., as the least fat metro area followed by No. 2 Honolulu, No. 3 Salt Lake City, No. 4 Seattle and No. 5 Colorado Springs.

Austin, Texas, edged out Orlando as the least-fat Southern city. The only other Southern cities that are less fat than the national average are Virginia Beach and Atlanta.